The Tangled Web(149)

" 'If his legs fail him, he fights on his knees.' That presumes, of course, that he has knees left. I feel weirdly calm about this whole thing, not that I ever expected to be a philosopher. Maybe I'm not entirely in this universe the theologians think the Ring of Fire created. Maybe some essential part of me was left behind, with that other Eberhard, in the universe where we were born. Maybe we're only echoes of what we would have been."

He tried to push himself up against the pillows, wincing when Tata put her hands under his armpits to help him.

"No, don't give me any more of the opium. I need to have my mind clear enough that nobody can deny that I know what I'm doing. What are those next lines?

". . . he who, for any danger of imminent death, abates nothing of his assurance; who, dying, yet darts at his enemy a fierce and disdainful look, is overcome not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered; the most valiant are sometimes the most unfortunate. There are defeats more triumphant than victories."

"It wasn't a defeat, though," Tata said. "Not even a triumphant defeat like that of Leonidas and the Spartans. We won."

"At the expense of the destruction of one of my towns and most of its people. What's left of the people? Less than a hundred men, I'd guess. More women and children, but it's still in the hundreds rather than the thousands. How are they going to live? What kind of a Landesvater have I been to my children to bring this fate down on them?"

"Victory is victory. At least, since the Irishmen had quartered themselves here, they didn't destroy everything in the fields. The people who still live will eat next winter."

Eberhard shook his head.

Tata stood up and shook her fist at him. "It would have been a lot worse to let four cavalry regiments owing their allegiance to Maximilian have free range to raid through Swabia with the USE people chasing after them. That would have been right back to the bad old days, before the Ring of Fire came. That's what kind of a father you have been to your country. That's what Papa used to say to me when I was a naughty child and he whipped me—that it would be worse for me in the long run if he didn't use the rod when I needed it."

"All right. It's a victory. I won't be enjoying it, though. Has that damned clerk finished writing up the clean copies?"

"Almost."

"I wish I'd been able to see Friedrich and Margarethe's baby."

"Your sister will take care of them. She has gone from Strassburg to Mainz since Friedrich was killed. Papa radioed to us. She took your little sisters with her. From what I've heard of Antonia, anybody who tries to keep her from taking care of them will be very, very sorry."

"General Horn will make the emperor understand, won't he? Everything that was personally Friedrich's is to go to Margarethe and the baby, no matter what our uncles try to grab?"

"He was here when you dictated the will. He'll be back to witness when you sign it. Colonel Utt is here, and Duke Bernhard's man, the colonel they call Raudegen."



"Given under Our hand and seal at Schorndorf in Our duchy of Württemberg this twenty-eighth day of May in the year of our Lord 1635." Widerhold finished his reading.

Horn looked at Utt.

"You are certain that this is your will and testament?" Horn asked.

"Yes." Eberhard grinned. "All five copies."

"You are fully aware of the complications that may ensue—no, that certainly will ensue?"

"As our friend Colonel Utt here would be likely to say," Duke Eberhard grinned again. Every time, it looked more like a skull smiling. ". . . quoting his lawyerly wife, 'to the best of my knowledge and belief,' I am aware. Am I the omniscient deity to say that I am fully aware? Just let me sign."

"Your personal properties to be divided in four shares, one each to your sisters and one to Agathe Donner, here present, as life incomes. Absolutely to any heirs of their bodies, should they have such; in default of heirs of their bodies, to your brother Friedrich's child; in case such child should die without heirs of his or her body . . ."

"Yes, yes, yes. The quill, please."

"The duchy itself . . ."

Since Horn's clerk was still delaying, Tata dipped the quill and passed it to him. She turned to the quartermaster and other witnesses. "You heard him. All of you heard him."

Eberhard signed.

Widerhold's voice went on:



"The duchy of Württemberg itself, independent and separate from any arbitrary provisions that were made at the Congress of Copenhagen in June of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and thirty-four, in regard to the establishment of a Province of Swabia as one of the component political divisions of the United States of Europe under the governance of Gustavus II Adolphus, king of Sweden and emperor of said United States of Europe, said provisions having been made without regard to or consultation with the will of the people of said duchy—"